Modification of portland cement with nanoadditives

Introduction. Portland cement slurries (suspensions) used for well cementing have high water-cement ratios (0.45–0.6). They also contain a minimum amount of inert fillers, must have zero water separation and controlled hardening with a minimum time between the start and end of setting. Literature review. Most of the scientific work on the use of nano-additives in binder systems relates to the construction industry. Nanosilicon, nanotitanium, nanocarbonate, nanoclays, carbon nanofibers, etc. were widely used as modifiers of cement systems, which showed an increase in the strength characteristics of the resulting concretes. Literature review showed that there is a very wide range of concentrations of nanoadditives in cement systems from 0.001 to 10.0%. An increase in the strength of cement with high concentrations of additives in a number of publications is explained by a decrease in its capillary porosity due to clogging of the pore space. However, nanoadditives should not play the role of microfillers in the hardened stone. They should work in cement slurry at the stage of cement hydration and cement structure formation at concentrations less than 1.0%. Results and Discussion. The paper presents the results of experimental studies of the rheological properties and early strength of stone based on Portland cement with additives (0.01%) of nanocarbonate and nanoiron. The role of nanoadditives is to increase the rate of cement hydration by reducing the activation energy, and accelerating the dissolution of the solid phase in the liquid. Nanoadditives can be a “substrate” on which two-dimensional nuclei of a new phase are formed. The probability of the appearance of two-dimensional nuclei on the substrate is much higher than for the formation of three-dimensional nuclei of a new phase in the bulk of the solution. Conclusion. The results show an ambiguous effect of additives on the tested parameters, which indicates the need to optimize the amount of additives. One of the reasons for the ambiguity of the results may be high water-cement ratios, which reduce the likelihood of the formation of “constrained” conditions in cement slurries. At the same time, the effects of accelerated cement hydration are “levelled” and the number of contacts between hydration products is reduced.